Session Eleven

Cutting it abit fine with this post but I was keen to finish off some extra stuff before posting this final part of the semester 1 reflective diary.
So Fridays session had another lecture that I didnt find particularly useful. I believe it was supposed to be about qualititive research methods but consistd of a woman talking from a print out about her work in fashion. There was some mention of her experince of qualititive research but not alot. I felt bad because she seemed sincere but maybe unaccustomed to giving talks so her points fell alittle flat.

For the practical side of the session I picked a classmates brain about lighting scenes. I had finished the characters, rigged and textured them, created weapons and also created alternate textures for them so the last hting to do was get some nice renders.
He took me through a process of making the floor the same colour as the background and adding point and directional lights of varying strengths. There was alot to do in the render settings to get it looking ad good as possible and thanks to his advice I was able to achieve a much more professional looking render than I previously had.

Here are the Renders ( I include only the characters with weapon ones as the others are stuff previously seen in the diary but abit nicer)


And of course the evil versions!


And the final thing I put together before the deadline are some quick models for my friend Joe. Its versions of myself and Joe to be put in test tubes in an alien space craft level. I was pleased with the poly count but I think I could have done a better job given more time.


So that's it for the reflective diary portion of the course! I intend to keep going with the diary though, it's a good way of keeping track of just how much youve achieved.
Only three short months ago I hadn't a clue how to use maya and although I realise I have a long way to go until Ill be comfortable/good at modelling I will say that I feel as if I have accomplished alot and that I look forward to getting better.

Session Ten (A)

With the deadline fast approaching and my characters weapons being finished I thought Id step it up alittle bit and do alternate textures for the three vikings.
I figured the easiest would be evil versions of the characters, I had a clear idea of how cool they would look all twisted and monochrome.
I began with the Medium viking. I desaturated the texture I already had and proceeded to add wilder hair, red eyes and sharp teeth.
The out come was what I had hoped for, the model now looks different enough to be classed as another character which was one of the aims I had for the models in the first place.

Here he is in all his raged out glory


And here's his new UV
Next up was the small viking, I decided to change the mouth considerably from the other viking, I knew I wanted them all to have pointed teeth but i didnt want them all to have the same expression. For this guy I went with a snaggle tooth, Its not exactly what I wanted him to look like, I kinda wanted him to be more impish but it look fine.

The model


And the UV

So then came the tall one. I was aiming to make him creep rather than out right scary and Im pretty sure I succeeded as you can see from an accident that happened when I was positioning the lighting in maya


After fixing the lighting i got this final render

And the UV


Now when I designed the tall viking I had a very specific idea for how his mouth was to be. I saw an animaton by an artist called McBess ( Link ) and in it theres a character who has a large beard that covers his mouth. When he moves his head it stretches the texture and I liked how it looked. I aimed to copy that with the tall viking and I succeeded in getting that effect.
I mention this because I noticed how the warping effect worked with the characters shiny new mouth and couldnt help but talk a render of it since it was so gloriously creepy


And as a parting gift here's an image that would accompany the one from the previous post